1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a floppy disk drive and, more particularly, relates to a floppy disk drive which is constituted in a light-weight and thin-thickness configuration and arranged so that a disk cartridge is surely held in a non-contact state with a magnetic head until the disk cartridge inserted is loaded from a loading portion to a recording/reproducing portion.
2. Related Art
A floppy disk drive employs a disk cartridge for housing a floppy disk so as to rotate freely therein and is generally used as an external storage device etc. of a personal computer, for example. The floppy disk drive is arranged in a manner that, when the recording/reproducing operation is performed in a state that the disk cartridge is loaded, an information signal etc. is recorded on or an information signal etc. recorded is reproduced from the floppy disk by a magnetic head.
The disk cartridge is arranged to house the floppy disk so as to freely rotate within a cartridge of a thin box shape formed by combining a pair of upper and lower cartridge halves. The disk cartridge is arranged in a manner that at the center portion of one of the cartridge halves, a circular opening portion is formed so as to face a center hub to the outside which fits with the center portion of the floppy disk housed therein. The disk cartridge is further arranged in a manner that the pair of cartridge halves are provided with recording/reproducing opening portions for facing parts of the major and rear surfaces of the floppy disk to the outside from the outer peripheral portion to the inner peripheral portion thereof. A shutter member is assembled to the disk cartridge so as to be able to slide freely such that the shutter member is provided with a property for closing the recording/reproducing opening portion by a spring etc.
The floppy disk drive is arranged in a manner that when the aforesaid disk cartridge is loaded in the loading portion, the disk cartridge is held within a cartridge holder which supports the disk cartridge within a base frame so as to slide freely, and then the disk cartridge is loaded to the recording/reproducing portion through the cartridge holder. The floppy disk drive is provided at the recording/reproducing portion with a disk driving mechanism which includes a disk table, a driving motor etc. and is arranged to magnetically chuck the center hub which moves therein from the circular opening portion of the cartridge.
The floppy disk drive is further provided at the recording/reproducing portion with the pair of magnetic heads which face on the major and rear surfaces of the floppy disk from the recording/reproducing opening portions of the disk cartridge. The magnetic heads are formed by a first magnetic head which is supported through a gimbal spring by a carriage attached to a lower chassis constituting the bottom surface of the recording/reproducing portion and a second magnetic head which is supported by a carriage through the gimbal spring so as to sandwich the floppy disk between the first and second magnetic heads. In the second magnetic head, the carriage is supported by a head supporting mechanism, and the head supporting mechanism is supported by an upper chassis so as to swing freely so that the positions where the head supporting mechanism moves into and moves out of the recording/reproducing portion can changed.
The magnetic heads are arranged in a manner that the carriages thereof are supported by guide mechanisms, respectively, and the magnetic heads move in a radial direction on the major and rear surfaces of the floppy disk by a driving motor such as a stepping motor, a voice coil motor etc. thereby to perform a seek operation. The floppy disk drive generally includes the aforesaid second magnetic head configuration when it is arranged to have such a specification for recording and reproducing the information signal etc. only on and from one of the major and rear surfaces of the floppy disk.
The floppy disk drive includes a shutter opening mechanism having a shutter opening member which drives a shutter member to open the recording/reproducing opening portions at the time of loading the disk cartridge to the recording/reproducing portion. The floppy disk drive further includes an eject mechanism having an eject lever member which slides along the chassis and is locked at a predetermined position in response to the loading operation of the disk cartridge, and is released from the locking state to thereby eject the disk cartridge loaded at the recording/reproducing portion to the loading portion in response to an ejecting operation.
In the floppy disk drive, as described above, the disk cartridge loaded from the loading portion is held by the cartridge holder and loaded to the recording/reproducing opening portions. In this respect, the shutter opening mechanism drives the shutter member to open the recording/reproducing opening portions on the way of loading the disk cartridge to the recording/reproducing opening portions. The floppy disk drive is arranged to move the disk cartridge horizontally from the loading position to the predetermined position and thereafter shifts the disk cartridge in the vertical direction at the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing opening portions. The floppy disk drive is further arranged to perform the locking operation of the eject lever member when the disk cartridge shifts in the vertical direction.
The floppy disk drive is arranged to avoid the hitting between the disk cartridge and the first magnetic head by shifting the disk cartridge in the vertical direction as described above. The floppy disk drive is further arranged to avoid the hitting between the disk cartridge and the second magnetic head by holding the second magnetic head to the evacuated state from the recording/reproducing portion by means of the head supporting mechanism until the disk cartridge is loaded in the recording/reproducing portion.
The floppy disk drive is arranged in a manner that when the disk cartridge is loaded in the recording/reproducing portion, the disk table entering from the opening portion magnetically chucks the center hub thereby to position and hold the floppy disk. In the floppy disk drive, the first and second magnetic heads are positioned in correspondence to the opened recording/reproducing opening portions. The floppy disk drive is further arranged in a manner that when the recording/reproducing operation is performed in this state, the driving motor of the disk driving mechanism is started to drive and rotate the floppy disk, whereby the information signal etc. is recorded or reproduced by the magnetic head.
The floppy disk drive is arranged in a manner that when the predetermined recording/reproducing operation is completed and the ejecting operation is performed, the locking state of the eject lever member is released, whereby the cartridge holder is restored to the loading portion from the recording/reproducing portion to perform the ejecting operation of the disk cartridge. In this case, the floppy disk drive is arranged not only to release the magnetic chucking state of the center hub by the disk table but also to release the opening state of the shutter member by a shutter release member, thereby to perform the ejecting operation such that the disk cartridge is restored to the initial state and to protrude the one end portion thereof from the loading portion.
The floppy disk drive has been intended to be miniaturized and be thin in thickness due to the miniaturization etc. of the main body apparatus of a personal computer etc. In the floppy disk drive, the constructive members such as the main chassis, the cartridge holder, the eject member etc. are formed by the press processing by using a light-weight thin metal plate as the material. The floppy disk drive has been constituted with the requirement of the thinning by forming the respective constituent members using materials with thin thickness. In the floppy disk drive, it is possible to improve the mechanical performance of the constructive members by suitably forming ribs etc. at the constructive members. However, since performance is limited to a certain extent when merely such a method is employed, material with a certain thickness is employed as the constructive members.
Further, in the floppy disk drive, the attention is directed to the clearances between the respective constructive members and the disk cartridge to be loaded and the measures for setting the clearances to the minimum values have been attempted. In the case of constituting the floppy disk drive so as to set the clearances at the respective constructive members to the minimum values, it is required to form the respective constructive members with high accuracy in their sizes and to assemble them with a high accuracy.
However, as described above, in the floppy disk drive, the loading operation is performed in a manner that the disk cartridge is moved horizontally to the predetermined position and shifted in the vertical direction at the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion. In the floppy disk drive, it is required to provide a cartridge push-up member for holding the disk cartridge in a pushed-up state so as to avoid the hitting between the disk cartridge and the first magnetic head until the disk cartridge is moved to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion. The cartridge push-up member is required to move away from the position to release the push-up state of the disk cartridge when the disk cartridge reaches the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion.
Further, in the floppy disk drive, since the constructive members such as the main chassis, the cartridge holder etc. are formed by using a relatively thin metal plate as the material, there may arise such a phenomenon that, for example, the cartridge holder bends due to the shock etc. to hit the first and the second magnetic heads with the disk cartridge to thereby break the heads. Thus, in the floppy disk drive, it is considered to provide a holding member for holding the cartridge holder to suppress the occurrence of the bending thereof. Such a holding member holds the cartridge holder not only when the cartridge holder is not loaded but also at least until the disk cartridge being loaded is moved to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion. Further, the holding member is required to move away from the 77 position when the disk cartridge moves to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion.
In this manner, the floppy disk drive is required to include members such as the aforesaid cartridge push-up member, the cartridge holder holding member etc. in the case of attempting to realize the miniaturization and the thin thickness, so that there arises a problem that the number of the parts and the number of the assembling processes increase. Further, since the floppy disk drive requires a space for assembling the cartridge push-up member, the cartridge holder holding member etc. within the chassis, the realization of the miniaturization and the thin thickness is limited to a certain degree.
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a floppy disk drive which is constituted in a miniaturized and thin-thickness configuration and arranged so that magnetic heads are mutually held in a non-contact state or a disk cartridge is surely held in a non-contact state with the magnetic heads until the disk cartridge inserted is loaded from a loading portion to a recording/reproducing portion.
In order to attain the object, the floppy disk drive according to the invention includes a cam plate member which is supported by a chassis so as to rotate freely and rotates in accordance with an inserting/ejecting operation of a disk cartridge. The cam plate member is integrally provided with an elastic cam lever portion and a cam convex portion. The elastic cam lever portion pushes up the disk cartridge being loaded in a manner of being moved onto a convex portion formed on the chassis and the [cum] cam convex portion pushes up and holds the cartridge holder which holds and loads the disk cartridge from a loading portion to the recording/reproducing portion.
According to the floppy disk drive of the invention thus configured, the cam plate member is rotated by the disk cartridge loaded from the loading portion. According to the floppy disk drive, the elastic cam lever portion of the cam plate member holds the riding state of the disk cartridge onto the convex portion of the chassis until the disk cartridge is loaded to the recording/reproducing portion from the loading portion, so that the pushing-up state of the disk cartridge is held by the elastic cam lever portion. In the floppy disk drive, when the disk cartridge reaches the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion, the elastic cam lever moved to the bottom surface of the recording/reproducing portion from the convex portion of the chassis by the rotating operation of the cam plate member thereby to release the disk cartridge having been pushed up. Thus, in the floppy disk drive, the disk cartridge is loaded to the recording/reproducing portion. Accordingly, in the floppy disk drive, the disk cartridge can be held in a state being surely separated from the magnetic head until the disk cartridge is loaded to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion from the loading position, whereby the magnetic head can be prevented from being broken due to the hitting etc. with the disk cartridge.
Further, according to the floppy disk drive, the cam convex portion of the cam plate member holds the cartridge holder until the disk cartridge is loaded to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing from the loading position. In the floppy disk drive, when the disk cartridge reaches the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion, the holding state of the cartridge holder by the cam convex portion is released in response to the rotating operation of the cam plate member, so that the cartridge holder, that is, the disk cartridge is loaded to the recording/reproducing portion. Thus, in the floppy disk drive, the cartridge holder is held until the disk cartridge is loaded to the position corresponding to the recording/reproducing portion from the loading position, so that the occurrence of the bending of the cartridge holder is suppressed even if vibration or impact etc. is applied to the cartridge holder thereby to prevent the occurrence of the breakages of the magnetic head due to hitting etc. with the disk cartridge. Further, in the floppy disk drive, even when the disk cartridge is loaded, the occurrence of the bending or deformation of the cartridge holder due to the vibration or impact etc. applied thereto can be surely prevented.